The Meeting of the Minds
by orange prose
Summary: It is just a normal, for varying degrees of normal, day in the life of Cuddy, House, Mulder, Scully, Al, and Sam. And then, all the sudden, everything is shiny and blue... This is crack, and also my first story. Rated K simply for House.


Author's Note: Hi! This is a rather strange idea from someone who has no real right to write about any of these shows. It is crack, but hopefully the good kind. All reviews are welcome: criticism, complaints, flames, accidental hitting of the review button along with fidgeting with the keyboard, etc. There is one line which is about shipping, so you can ignore this if it bothers you. This is a crossover between X-Files, Quantum Leap, and House M.D., for no real reasons other than they are three of a friend of mine's favorite shows, and we were having a discussion about what would happen if the characters met. They do not fight crime, sadly.

MightyCarrot was a dear and looked through this story for me (Twice, as the interwebs ate her first edited version!) and so I will thank her here, along with all the other times I have. Any mistakes are mine, and likely in direct violation of her changes. You should all (all, like, five of you reading this) go and look her up, but after you've read this, of course.

This chapter is rather short for many reasons: I'm having problems finishing the story, its ten pages and that seems too long, I want _something_ up, etc. Anyway, I apologize for shortness.

Disclaimer: I own none of these characters, their TV shows, or the franchise they are associated with. My dad, however, owns all the X-Files episodes on VHS.

#

Dana Scully looked fuzzily out the window of Mulder's car. She had awoke this morning to her phone ringing, Mulder was giving her news that he had in a break in their case, and she had to see it right now. He wouldn't tell her what it was; only that she had to see it. So far, all she could see was a small town without any lights on, and that it was going to be a very long day, if Mulder was going to keep talking excitedly at her.

#

It is not important where Sam Beckett was. In truth, no one really knew, let alone Sam himself. Then he moved, and he didn't know where he was then either, but he knew it was new, and that it was different. He knew this not because of the many doctorates he had, but because this new place was blue and shiny, and he felt as though he was floating, which he was quite sure he would remember, were this happening twice. Although, perhaps not.

#

"What do you mean Sam moved?" Al yelled at the computer he held in his hand. It did not answer, as it was not programmed to.

"Why?" he said, pressing the more high-tech equivalent into ZIGGY.

In response, he got the more high-tech equivalent of: "hell if I know."

"Well, take me there," Al announced, and something obliged, though it was not the equipment.

#

Lisa Cuddy did not know any of this. All she knew at that moment was that she was walking down the hallway of her hospital, on her way to yell at her diagnostician. She knew House was in very big trouble, but the whole hospital knew that by simply seeing the look on her face. She had a case in her hand, and she was going to yell at him with something regarding that, but then she promptly forgot what it was.

This was because she was no longer walking through the hallway. She was now floating, and she was now no longer mad at the world. She felt quite peaceful, in fact…

Why was everything a shiny blue? She wondered this to herself, rather unconcerned, and learned that if she thought about it hard enough she could propel herself forward to investigate, 

but also that no matter how far she went, she could never reach the walls. She propelled herself forward anyway, and found herself quickly remembering the reason for her ire.

"You!" she bellowed at House, who had been turned the other way. He turned towards her in the air.

"What is this?" she asked, in a tone that made it clear she suspected he had done it.

He shrugged, and then waved jauntily at her.

Then Cuddy could not see, she felt a slight disappointment, from something else, and then she was falling, and she felt the rather hard ground.

#

"What is it?" Scully said, as Mulder turned a corner and put the car right in front of a large blue rip in the sky.

"I think it's a wormhole," he said, "but it's moved."

And then all was shimmering and blue, and falling.

#

All Sam was aware of was a female voice yelling "you" and a brief glimpse of a very confused looking Al, before he too, fell.

#

Cuddy reawoke lying on the ground, sort of on her back.

"House!" she yelled, sitting up, and she heard a groan to her right. There was a woman with red hair, in what Cuddy believed was an FBI jacket, and she looked quizzically at her. To her left was a man who was also not House, to Cuddy's disappointment. Sam rubbed his temples, and then looked rather excitedly at his sleeve and hand.

"I'm me!" he chirped, and then he looked at Cuddy, worried she'd heard him.

"So'm I," Cuddy responded.

The woman, whose jacket did, in fact, say FBI in yellow letters, got up and looked around them. "And now he's going to say we went through the wormhole," she said, and sighed.

"You can't go through a wormhole," the man said. "You'd be turned inside out."

"I know that," she said. She rose to her feet and walked behind her. There were rows of houses, spaced apart unevenly, and they didn't make a neat row as most houses did. She looked along the backs of the houses for Mulder, and didn't find him.

"Want some help?" Cuddy noticed that she was the only one not up, and took the man's hand.

"I'm Sam," he said, shaking her hand.

"Doctor Lisa Cuddy," she said, almost mechanically.

"In that case, I'm Doctor Samuel Beckett," he said, amused.

"Shaking hands seems to trigger me," she said, smiling.

The other woman walked back over to them, "Special agent Dana Scully," she said.

"Who're you looking for," Sam asked as he shook her hand.

"My partner is here too, I think, and I want to find him."

"I have to find my employee, I'll go with you.

Sam followed. Perhaps Al was here, or maybe he was here to help them. At the very least, it was something to do.

#

Quite a few feet away, about the same thing was happening. Three men lie on the dirt, rather confused as to where they were. Al found that there was a cigar in his mouth and thus decided wherever he was couldn't be _too_ bad, Mulder found himself face down in the desert, and 

House found that the few seconds in the wormhole without pain only made now hurt worse. He then promptly forgot that he had been without it, and his entire experience with shiny cerulean walls. He, however, knew he had forgotten it, as you know you have forgotten why you wanted in the kitchen once you get there.

Al was the first to his feet, and helped Mulder up. Mulder then proceed to collapse on Al.

"How are you standing?" he said, trying to perform this difficult feat.

"It's just like being at sea," Al said.

"You say that like that's easy," Mulder said, finally standing on his own two feet.

"Um, Rear Admiral Al Calavicci," Al said, shaking Mulder's hand, and House smiled. Most sane people at the very least steel themselves at this moment, but House was now around fresh blood.

"I've heard all the jokes," Al said.

"I could try," House said.

"Go ahead, I'm running out."

House seemed rather disappointed during the introductions; no knew who he was. Mulder stopped on the steps of the nearest house after his legs started working again, and looked up at the sky. House walked over to him, sitting on the steps also. Al joined them, though he didn't sit.

"What are you doing?"

"See, my partner's here somewhere looking for me, probably, so I can just wait here."

"You aren't going to go find them?"

"And have Scooby Doo hijinks?" House said, "How about we stay here?" he said, as though moving was idiotic and he was shocked to be in the company of people who would suggest this.

Al looked skeptical of this plan, but finally sat down. They chatted for a while, mostly about how the weather seemed to be getting hotter by the second.

"We should go inside," Al announced, and the others deemed this acceptable once it became moving or melting.

They were in a ranch style home. The first room they entered was barren: the only pieces of furniture in it were three cushy chairs with footrests, with two coolers in between. There were no lights, only two windows. There were also no pictures on the walls, and a door to the left.

House seated himself in a chair while Al and Mulder searched the coolers. The one Mulder got to had inside it a large bag of sunflower seeds; Mulder announced this excitedly and put it on a chair. Under that were more, smaller bags of sunflower seeds. Al's contained ice and water bottles.

"I would've rather had a beer," House said. Mulder took up the large bag of sunflower seeds and went into the next room. Al followed him, House stayed.

For a few seconds, House's need to understand fought for priority with his leg, and he finally decided he could always sit: he would not always be in a strange house.

The room through the door was a kitchen, perhaps. Lower and upper cabinets lined the walls, except a space for an old, fifties era refrigerator, the plug for which was resting on the cabinet next to it, and a door to the left. There was no stove, though there was a smoke detector on the ceiling in the middle of the room. Everything was lined with dust.

They found that every cabinet was empty, and the refrigerator, which was spotless inside, contained a single beer on the middle rack, in a dusty glass bottle.

"What, if I close it again two will appear?" House said, and tried this. Nothing happened, there was still only one. He took it, opened the top, and took a drink, only then looking at the others. "It's cold."

Mulder reopened the refrigerator, and looked rather shocked at what was inside. House was going to make a smart-aleck comment, but then he moved so he could see inside.

There was still only one dusty, glass bottle, and it failed to do any tricks, despite the fact the men were staring at it incredulously.

"So there was one exactly behind the last one," House said, as though there could be no other answer and anyone who implied such was an idiot. "Did anyone look?"

No one had, this was true.

"I think we should leave it," Mulder admitted.

"I need a drink very much right now," Al said, and took it. There was nothing behind it, and Mulder quickly shut the door.

"There was nothing behind it," Mulder said, "so when we open the door, there should be nothing there."

They all stared at the refrigerator for some time, and then went on to the next room, leaving it unopened.

There was absolutely nothing in the next room, except a door right in front of them and a single window. There was no dust, even. Mulder began struggling to open the sunflower seed bag, and the others nearly left him.

In the next room, there was only a single, black and white picture of an attractive Native American woman. She had a vague smile, like she was listening to someone out of the picture tell a joke she had heard once before, or perhaps this was just the fifth picture and she was getting tired of posing. No one knew her, they hadn't expected to, though they had expected her to blink. After Mulder had finally managed to open the bag and dirty the spotless room with a spray of sunflower seeds, they went on through the door straight in front of them.

The next room was full of single beds. Absolutely full, there were no extra spaces besides the one, bed-sized space in front of the door, the rest of the room was full with beds, two rows put end to end and so close together people wishing to sleep would have to get on one and then roll or climb to the wall to let others in. Perhaps there was no room for dirt, and that's why there was none. The only door was the one they had entered by, and the men had to refollow their path to get back to the chairs and water bottles. No one looked at the photograph again, and the refrigerator was left unopened.

They sat down, and there was silence for a while, the men trying to process this. House took this opportunity to take a few Vicodin, washing it down with the beer. He then looked questioningly at the bottle.

"It's almost empty. It wasn't like that before."

Al had been patting down his pockets, ignoring House, and he now got up to do so better. "ZIGGY's gone," he said, mostly to himself, and he rushed outside.

Mulder and House shrugged at each other. Mulder, perhaps only because he was feeling left out, got up and checked his pockets. They had everything they were supposed to have, he even had his gun. He tried to tell House this, but House had already gone down the steps.

Al was outside in his hands and knees, desperately digging through the desert dirt. Sam was going to make that angry, disapproving face at him, and this time he would actually have a reason.

"So this thing's important?" House said, sitting on the steps.

"Very important, very expensive, very time consuming to replace," Al said, and then he got up. "Very gone."

House, who had almost tuned Al out, looked down at his feet; there was something there.

"Hey, more Vicodin!"

"I'm very happy for you," Al said miserably.

Mulder came out of the house, pushing the cooler in front of him. "Did you find it?"

Al shook his head.

"You know," Mulder said, looking around. "We're in a desert."

"I'm sure the FBI is gravely missing you," House said.

"And I'm sure medicine misses someone who takes drugs they find on the ground," Mulder snapped, walking out towards where the road had been. There was no road there, and no highway, and nothing for what looked like miles. A few feet away, "You Keep on Knocking but You Can't Come In" played for no discernable reason.

"It has no label and an easy-open cap," House said to himself, trying to understand. "It's full. Why is it here?" He would deal with the music later, Vicodin was more important.  
Al would have had no idea, even if he had been listening. Instead, he was thinking about how long it had taken them to build that stupid bucket of bolts.


End file.
